by Howard Fast
Masuto prided himself on being beyond hate, yet he now felt hatred welling up within himself. He was locked in a shadowy struggle with a man who was an affront to human dignity, to conscience, to every concept of good and evil, indeed to the human race. According to Masuto’s own knowledge, this man had murdered four people, four people who had done him no harm, for Masuto was certain that the skeleton under the pool had been a friend of the killer. Otherwise, how had the killer persuaded him to go there with him at night and alone?
The only thread was the girl, Rosita, and even there Masuto was beginning to have his doubts. The killer was careful. He might be quite certain that the maid had not seen him. This might very well be the end of the affair. Wednesday would come and go, and Wainwright would crack his whip.
Now it was twelve o’clock—noon, on Tuesday, and as if in answer to his thought, Wainwright entered Masuto’s office, carrying two containers of coffee and two sandwiches.
“You look like hell, Masao. You look like you lost your best friend.”
Masuto stared at him without answering.
“Here’s coffee. I got corned beef and ham and cheese. Take your choice.”
“I’m not hungry.”
“That’s a sorry note. I see you sitting in here like a whipped dog, and I buy you a sandwich, and you tell me you’re not hungry.”
“I’ll have the ham and cheese.”
“Good. I prefer corned beef.”
“I know that.”
“What in hell is it with you?” Wainwright demanded. “How do you get so damned involved in these things? You’re a cop, not an avenging angel.”
“I don’t sleep well with a cold-blooded killer walking these streets or driving his Mercedes.”
“How do you know he’s walking these streets?”
“I know. Tell me, captain, if a question has no answer, the question should be enough—wouldn’t you say?”
“I don’t know what the hell you’re talking about.”
“Sit down and join me at lunch. Let’s talk.”
“Sure. I got nothing else to do. I just earn my pay by sitting around.”
“You have to eat. I need someone to talk to.”
“It takes me ten minutes to eat.”
“Then let us talk for ten minutes,” Masuto said, smiling.
“Okay. You got it. I’ll take half your ham and cheese and give you half my corned beef. That way we can both be happy.”
“No. I really prefer ham and cheese. How long have you been a cop, captain?”
“Too long. What is this?”
“Questions of crime. The question has to be the answer, I suppose, if I can find the right question.”
“Twenty-two years, if you can get off that Zen kick of yours.”
“Sixteen years for me. Thirty-eight years between us. A man sheds his identity. Why?”
“He killed someone. He jumped bail. He had to get out of the country.”
“No, he has to stay here. That’s the crux of it. He has to stay here. Or he wants to stay here.”
“He’s got family here.”
“Come on, captain. This man doesn’t give a damn about anyone.”
“How do you know?”
“I know him. I know how he thinks. I know how he operates. Your ordinary criminal loses himself. This man didn’t want to lose himself. He had other plans. And how did the cops know who he was? I mean, if they knew who he was, why didn’t they grab him?”
“Like I said, he jumped bail.”
“No, that’s not his style.”
“How in hell do you know what his style was?” Wainwright demanded. “Do you know how many people jump bail in any given month? Hundreds. A man knocks over a bank—”
“He’s not a bank robber,” Masuto interrupted. Then he leaped to his feet and grinned at Wainwright. “Of course, they were both in it. Together. God forgive my stupidity! That’s why it made no sense—because I always thought of one, a loner, but to plan it and execute it right from the beginning, there had to be two of them.”
“Will you calm down and tell me what the devil you are talking about?”
“No, sir. With all due respect, captain, I’m going to deliver this one to you signed, sealed, and rolled up.”
“Like hell you are! I’m your boss, and I damn well want to know what’s going on.”
Masuto studied him, smiling slightly. “All right, we’ll make a deal.”
“No deals.”
“Don’t you want to hear what I’ve got to say?”
“No deals! What do you mean, you’ll make me a deal? You got one hell of a nerve, Masuto.”
“Okay, you win. No deal.”
“What do you mean, no deal?”
“Just that.” Masuto shrugged. “The hell with it.”
Now Wainwright studied Masuto shrewdly, and then he said in a low voice, “You know what I ought to do with you?”
“Ah, so—humbly request you fire me.”
Wainwright shook his head and took the last bite of his corned beef sandwich. “You are one painful, miserable son of a bitch, Masao. All right. What’s your deal?”
“In one hour, give or take a few minutes, I will give you the name of the killer. Not the name of the man whose skeleton we found under the pool, but the name of the man who killed him. I want you to know in advance that this name will do us no good—now. Maybe later. But the killer has become someone else, the man he killed, and that’s the name we have to find.”
“So you’re going to give me the name of the murderer in one hour. That’s bullshit, and you know it.”
“Do I make idle promises? Have you ever known me not to deliver?”
“What’s this business of two of them?”
“Do you remember what I said to you before, the question is the answer? And then, a moment ago, you asked me how I knew what his style is? But I know. Why would Brody remember him? Why would Lundman remember him? Because he had a friend, a pal, a buddy, someone close to him and with him all the time. You don’t remember one laborer; you remember two. ‘I remember them,’ people say, ‘they were always together.’ And then, once I realized that there were two of them, it made sense.”
“What made sense?”
“Give me the hour, and I give you the name.”
“All right, you give me the name of the killer. What do I give you?”
“Four more days. I want a week.”
“You got it.”
“A little more.”
“I thought so. What else?”
“Travel time and expenses.”
“What do you mean, travel time? Where do you have to travel?”
“I don’t know yet, but I’m sure it’s in the continental United States.”
Wainwright stood up angrily. “You bug me, Masao. You come up with these wild guesses. You know what nobody else knows, and you’re always pulling that Charlie Chan routine, grabbing things out of thin air. You promise to give me a name. How do I know it’s the right name? Anyway, if I’m to believe you, the name is no damn good to us.”
“Perhaps. Perhaps not.”
“Great. Just great. And now you want a blank check to travel anywhere in the United States.”
“Just plane fare. There and back. I promise not to stay overnight. No hotel bills. No perks.”
“How come you don’t know where?”
“I get that with the name of the killer.”
“How can you be so damn sure?”
“Because the pieces have been floating around in my mind for three days, and finally they’ve come together.”
Wainwright leaned back in his chair and stared at Masuto thoughtfully. Finally, he sighed. “I don’t know. I ought to be used to the way you work. All right. We got a deal. Now get me the name of the killer. In one hour. I’ll be in my office.”
Wainwright left the room, closing the door behind him. Masuto took a deep breath and stretched his arms. Suddenly, he felt alive, alert, filled with energy. Grudgingly—for it went against hi
s practice of Buddhism—he admitted to himself that this was the kind of moment he embraced, the moment when ghosts ceased to be ghosts, when the quarry was almost in sight. It was embezzlement. It had to be. An ordinary thief made no sense. An ordinary thief ends up in jail or in the county graveyard. He doesn’t drive a black Mercedes thirty years later. A brutal senseless murder made less sense. This man was brutal but never senseless. The only thing that fit was an embezzlement, an embezzlement large enough to justify the planning, the killing, and the apparent power of the man who drove the black Mercedes.
He picked up the telephone and buzzed Polly.
“You want a date, Masao? Any time.”
“No, dear. I want the coordinating department at the F.B.I. in Washington, the place where they have all those fascinating computers.”
Masuto waited, and a minute or so later, his phone rang. A voice said, “Williams, F.B.I.”
“Agent Williams,” he said in his most cordial tone, “this is Sergeant Masuto, Beverly Hills police. We have a problem of the most urgent nature.”
“Go ahead. I’ll see what we can do for you.”
“I’m talking of embezzlement. In the year nineteen fifty, between the first of April and the first of May, there was a major embezzlement in a bank. No, let me put it this way, during that time the facts of a major embezzlement came to light. We would like to have as many of those facts as you can give me.”
“Can you tell me anything more, sergeant? Be more definite?”
“I’m afraid not, except that we believe the sum was over a million dollars. If you have more than one in the area of that figure, I’d like to have whatever you dig up.”
“All right, sergeant. I’ll have to call you back to confirm, and then I’ll put it through the computer. I should have something for you this afternoon.”
“This afternoon?”
“You’re on California time, sergeant. It’s three forty-five here. I’ll get you the information within the hour.”
For the next half hour Masuto paced back and forth in his office. The telephone rang once, and he grabbed it eagerly. It was Sy Beckman at the hotel, to tell him that nothing had happened and he was bored to death and his Spanish was no better, and when could he go home. Masuto told him to calm down and that he would see him within an hour or so. “If I’m still a cop.”
“And what does that mean?”
“I’ll explain. I’ll explain.”
And then the telephone rang again, and it was Williams. “Masuto,” he said, “I got it for you. Just one to fit your specifications in that time period, but it was a beauty. Two million eight hundred thousand dollars. How about that?”
“The only one?”
“The only one.”
Masuto made notations on his pad. “What bank?”
“The Midtown Manhattan National Bank, upper Madison Avenue in New York. The culprit was the chief teller, name of Stanley Cutler.” He spelled it out. “Twenty-five years old, Caucasian, American born, veteran with two decorations. Orphan, raised in a Buffalo orphanage, IQ of a hundred and thirty-seven, no priors. Honorable discharge, November nineteen forty-five, went to work at the Midtown Manhattan in January of forty-six, trained as a teller and rose rapidly. The embezzlement began during April, nineteen forty-nine, but wasn’t discovered until an audit a year later. Classified as a brilliant piece of work, an innovation in bank embezzlement. By the way, what’s your interest in this out there?”
“You’ll receive a full report within the week.”
“Well, the file is open, even after thirty years. No trace ever of Cutler or a nickel of the two million eight. If you’ve got anything, let us know.”
“I certainly will. Do you have pictures and prints?”
“Both. I can wire you both and then send you a glossy through the mail.”
“By the way, Williams, how tall was Cutler?”
“Five eight and a half.”
“Can you send me a full description, eye color, hair, everything you have? Care of Sergeant Masao Masuto, Rexford Drive, Beverly Hills, 90210.”
“Right. What are you, Masuto, Japanese?”
“That’s right.”
“Poetic justice if you catch up with Cutler. He fought in the Pacific.”
“So it goes.”
“Good luck.”
Masuto put down the telephone, took a sheet from his pad, and printed in block letters STANLEY CUTLER. He then went into Wainwright’s office.
“The hour’s almost up,” Wainwright told him.
“Not quite.” He put the sheet of paper on the desk in front of Wainwright.
“What’s this?”
“The name of our killer.”
“Who the devil is Stanley Cutler?”
“I haven’t the vaguest idea. I only know that he murdered six people.”
“Six? Where do you get six?”
“The man under the pool. A doctor named Ben McKeever, his nurse, the two Lundmans and Mrs. Brody. The doctor and his nurse are pure guesswork, so we may have to scrap those two.”
“Who the hell is Ben McKeever?”
“I’ll tell you about it, captain. By the way, I’m flying to New York tonight on the red eye. It’s the cheapest flight.”
“It would be New York,” Wainwright said sourly.
Chapter 9
BLIND
ALLEYS
Masuto called Beckman at the Beverly Glen Hotel, and after listening to Beckman’s woeful description of the state of his marriage, informed him that some respite was imminent. “You can leave her for a few hours. Have you had lunch?”
“Just finished.”
“Then tell her to lock and bolt the door, and not to open it for anyone except you. Not for anyone. Make a simple code word between you, just in case she’s too frightened to recognize your voice. Then get over here to the station.”
“Will you talk to my wife?”
“I’ll talk to her.”
But talking to Sophie Beckman was not easy, and Masuto waited patiently to get a word in. “What do you mean, secrets?” she demanded. “What am I, the town crier? He can’t tell me where he is or what he’s doing? You’re supposed to be cops, but you’re beginning to sound like those creeps at the C.I.A. who won’t tell Congress what they’re doing, even if what they’re doing is planning to blow up the world, which would be all right, but you’re dealing with my husband who can’t keep his eyes off any woman under ninety who comes by, and about his hands, I won’t even mention—”
She paused for a breath, and Masuto said quickly, “I give you my word, Sophie, this is his assignment, and it’s legitimate.”
“For how long? When do I see him again?”
“Another day or two.”
“Not that I’m breaking my heart to see him, Masao, but it’s the way I’m treated.”
“He’s more miserable than you are.”
“I hope so.”
“Just another day or two, Sophie.”
“Is he with a woman?”
“Absolutely not.”
“You’re lying, Masao. I could draw you a picture of the woman he’s with—an oversized blonde with big boobs—”
“What did you say, Sophie?” Masuto asked with sudden excitement.
“I said I could draw you a picture—”
“Yes, of course. No, no, you’re misjudging Sy. He’s doing a hard and arduous job, believe me.”
Finally, he managed to calm her, fortunately, since while he was talking to her, an officer entered and put a telephoto on his desk.
“For you, sergeant, with the compliments of the F.B.I.”
Masuto stared at the picture, recalling with some guilt the times in the past when he had been less than generous in his opinion of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. He had to admit now that if less than long on simple intelligence, when it came to the keeping of files and the use of computers, they were without peer. Wire photos are not of the best, nevertheless it was with great excitement that he stare
d at the photo of the man he hunted. Thirty years had passed since this picture was taken. He saw the face of a young man, most likely blond or with light brown hair, with pale eyes, a long, thin nose, a mole prominent on one cheek, a wide jaw, fleshy cheeks, heavy brows that almost met over the nose, and thin lips. There was a scar along the left side of the jawbone.
For at least five minutes he sat immobile, staring at the photo. Then he picked it up and went into Wainwright’s office, where he laid the picture on the desk in front of the captain.
“What’s this?” Wainwright asked.
“Our murderer, thirty years ago. Mr. Stanley Cutler, in the flesh.”
“Where did you get this?”
“Courtesy of the F.B.I.”
“Masao, if this is another one of your ploys—”
“That’s our man. Thirty years ago, he embezzled two million eight hundred thousand dollars from the Midtown Manhattan National Bank. That’s how the F.B.I. came into it. They never found him or the money.”
“Where does it connect? You’re guessing again.”
“Am I? Perhaps. But every instinct in my body tells me I’m right. This is the way I spell it out. The embezzlement took place over twelve months. He had a partner, whom he set up from the very beginning for the kill. That’s the way his mind works.”
“How the hell do you know how his mind works?”
“I told you before that I know him. Just ride with it. He needs the partner to open bank accounts, to spread the money around, maybe to buy various bearer bonds, governments, municipals. Conceivably, the partner comes to California, stashes the loot here. They take a whole year. I was going to New York to see the people at the bank and find out exactly how he did it, but that’s not important now.”
“You mean you’re not going to New York?”
“No, something came up.”
“What?”
“This picture. Anyway, it’s thirty years. Who knows if there’s anyone alive who can give me the information?”
“If this is our man, let’s spread the picture around.”
“No good, captain. It was thirty years ago. I told you he had his face done.”
“What about his prints? Get them from the feds. They don’t change. He worked in a bank. They got to have his prints.”
